Otter and i just got back from a 2 week stint in Costa Rica. We caught the tail end of the rainy season in every place we went around the country – Tamarindo, Samara, Santa Teresa/Mal Pais. We started in Pavones.
We got to San Jose late in the evening 9/22 and posted up at the Hotel Villa Bonita. The place is affordable but not super cheap, clean and quiet. We had a flight the next morning at 530 and this place was only 5 minutes from the airport. Good place to stay if you have connecting flights and a pretty cheap taxi ride.
Our flight to Golfito touched down 45 mins later. Driving would’a taken a good 8 hours. We figured the $90 flight was worth our time and money. We then hopped in a taxi and headed to the bus stop but decided to just take the taxi the 1.5 hrs to Pavones after i managed to talk him down a bit in price. Nice taxi guy named Alex.
At least half the people in Costa Rican country side drive motorcycles rather than cars. I imagine it’s because they’re cheaper and more maneuverable in the wet season. On the way to Pavones we saw tons of dudes wearing ponchos flying down the road on motorcycles. We passed one of em right as he ran over a huge white goose. Didn’t even try to go around it. Just ran the goose right in half! I saw blood shoot out of it. I imagined it’s mate that was walking right next to it unscathed was pretty sad. Alex the taxi guy just said, ‘Aye aye aye.’
Pavones is a rad place. The town was pretty quiet being as it was the wet season and significantly less people travel during that time. The line up however was pretty locked. We ended up staying there for about 4 days and the swell went from waist high to over head the last day. Once the swell started picking up the line up started spreading out as a couple sections formed. Most people couldn’t make the full couple sections across the river mouth so I posted up on the one further down and pretty much had every wave to my self. I had some sic long rides, got stung by jellies every session, heard whales, and watched girls in bikinis tear shit up.
Here’s the rest of the Gallery.
Pavones consists of a river mouth with what looked like 3 main sections. The first one would start way to lookers left of the river mouth, then peel across the mouth. Number two would pick up a ways after the river mouth where the shoreline would start to wrap in, and a third one would pick up somewhere after that. The biggest i caught it was maybe a foot or two overhead so it wasn’t quite connecting all the way.
Lili, the owner of the place we stayed, Mira Olas Cabins who’d been living there for 20-some years was saying that it didn’t connect the way it used to anymore. There has been lots of development upstream that’s been pumping sediment out the river which has changed the break. Evidently it needs to be something along the lines of double overhead to connect all the way.
All the locals were super nice. Even the Ticos in the lineup were chill and sharing waves even though some were annihilating the wave. Airs n shit. They seemed stoked to hear my shitty gringo espanglish. One Tico paddled over to me when i was trippin on my jelly sting and said ‘yellfiysh’, and pointed to his arm. Big red mark on him too. Then i asked him sarcastically, ‘Vas a llorar?’. He laughed.
We ate at a place called the Cafe Sol which was easily the best food in Pavones and probably the best food i’d had on the whole trip. Super good seafood. Had a mahi-mahi steak the size of my face. It’s located across from the Cantina right next to a surf shop. Def check it if you go.
Stoked we got to surf Pavones with some decent size. I can’t imagine that place at doubleO. I’ve heard some stories of how that thing connects. I think i’d pee myself out of pure joy to experience that. Awesome little town.
Next up: Part II
Related posts:
I knew there was a horse involved…
shout out to the cabbie!
“a mahi-mahi stead the size of my face” earns you another day of life on this planet holmz…keep em coming.
stoked you guys scored! where’s the shots of you throwing buckets?
I heard sdrex had a bucket of horse semen pumped from his stomach, does that count?
what happens in costa stays in costa.
sweet photos dood. you shoulda smuggled that super beetle and gecko back and kept them as pets.
so you shipped your board down….
how much did they charge you?
last time i rode American airlines they were charing $150 one way.
We flew Continental. They charge like $100 each way for surfboards (up to two in one bag).
We actually totally lucked out and didn’t get charged either way for our boards. Im still dumbfounded how i pulled that one off.
Our +200 bucks was quickly balanced out in cab fare rip-offs though.
I did the same trip last may 2007, scored pavones at double overhead and reeling. insane! just as crowded but the sets and the sectioning river mouth spread everyone out.